Initial-letter contraction
“there” in braille
Two cells for the whole word, however long it is — 5 letters here, a saving of 3 cells. “there” is 63rd in the 5,000-word frequency list this site measures against.
Dots 5, then dots 2-3-4-6
Unicode ⠐⠮ — 5 letters in two cells
How to recognise it
Its second cell is the “the” groupsign, not a t — and that is not a coincidence. “There”, “these” and “their” all use it, separated only by which prefix comes first, which is the neatest piece of design in this whole list.
The second cell is the “the” sign, not a t
You would expect a t. What follows the prefix is the the groupsign, chosen for the shape of the word rather than its spelling. Nine of the thirty-three do this.
Learn it with its two sisters
“there” and “these” and “their” are written with the same second cell. Only the prefix separates them, which means the hard work of telling them apart is done by one cell — and learning them as a set is far quicker than meeting them one at a time.
Where it may appear inside a longer word
The rulebook uses it inside a longer word only where the letters keep the meaning of “there” as a word of its own (Rules of Unified English Braille 10.7.2).
Whether the letters keep their meaning is not something a translator can read off the spelling, so this site uses the sign wherever the letters occur, except in the words the rulebook itself writes without it — bothered, ethereal, isothere, smithereens, Theresa and withered — and the same words with an ending added. This site also leaves it out of Therese, which the rulebook does not name but which follows the same rule; liblouis 3.39.0 writes it the same way.
From the rulebook's own examples, as this site writes them. With the sign: thereby ⠐⠮⠃⠽; therefore ⠐⠮⠿⠑; therein ⠐⠮⠔. Without it: bothered ⠃⠕⠮⠗⠫; ethereal ⠑⠮⠗⠂⠇; isothere ⠊⠎⠕⠮⠗⠑.
As with every contraction, it is not used where its letters would reach across the join between the parts of a compound word (10.11).
Updated 27 September 2026. Until 18 September this section gave the positions — start, middle, end — where the sign agreed with the reference translator more often than not, and the translator followed those. It follows the rule above now; the survey explains what changed and why.
Longer words that keep it
1 word among the 5,000 commonest in English is written with this contraction inside it. These are some of them, and every one was taken from this site's own output rather than chosen by hand.
| Word | In braille (Grade 2) | Grade 1 | Grade 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| therefore | 9 cells | 4 cells |
The other 21 words under dots 5
The largest of the three prefix groups, so the prefix itself tells you little — the second cell does the work.
character, day, ever, father, here, know, lord, mother, name, one, ought, part, question, right, some, through, time, under, where, work, young.
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (26,439 words), this contraction is written 100 times and saves 300 cells. That is 0.87% of everything Grade 2 saves in the book, and ranks it 30th of the 158 contractions used.
The words it is written in: there (75), there's (24), therefore (1).
Check your own text
Type “there” into the translator with Grade 2 selected to see both cells, or take the full list.
“there” in braille as an image
Both cells as a picture: dot 5, then dots 2, 3, 4 and 6 — the whole word in two cells rather than 5 letters.
